Members of the Just Russia faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg announced their withdrawal from the party

Members of the Just Russia (SR) faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg announced their withdrawal from the party in full force. It all started with the fact that the vice-speaker of the chamber, Marina Shishkina, who on February 1 announced her resignation from the post of head of the regional branch of Right Russia, announced at a plenary session that she was leaving a leading position in the city parliament. According to Shishkina, the day before, the chairman of the legislative assembly, Alexander Belsky (United Russia), dismissed her from the post of his deputy. “The reason for my decision is very simple, colleagues. I am going to take up a new political project that is close to me in spirit and conscience,” she said, adding that she would continue to work “as the leader of the faction, I hope, and as a deputy.”

During a break in the meeting, Shishkina read out to journalists a statement on behalf of the Just Russia faction that the members of the deputy association in full force were leaving the party ranks. The decision, according to the former deputy chairman of the Legislative Assembly, “was not born today”, but is collegial. As the statement says, each of the parliamentarians “joined a different party”: “socialist, social democratic, on the shield of which the main idea was social justice and big problems for small people.” “And we also joined the party of intellectual and professional politicians, born in open, tolerant and enlightened St. Petersburg. Personally, I joined just such a party. Unfortunately, recently the current agenda of the party has changed in a direction that does not correspond to our understanding, ”Shishkina said (quote from Interfax).

She thanked the leader of the Right-wing Russia, Sergei Mironov, for many years of cooperation, but stressed that members of the faction now feel the need to choose a different political path, and recently “humanity has ceased to be enough” on her party agenda. The faction of the SR in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg consisted of five people, including non-partisan Mikhail Amosov. The latter declared his readiness to work with colleagues. Marina Shishkina has headed the St. Petersburg branch of A Just Russia since 2017. In March 2023, after her announcement of her resignation from the post of head of the city branch, Nadezhda Tikhonova was elected the new chairman of the council of the regional branch. Shishkina became a member of the bureau of the branch council.

This is not the first split in the St. Petersburg branch of A Just Russia, notes political consultant Petr Bystrov. According to him, the Right Russians began to lose positions in the city after Oksana Dmitrieva left the post of head of the regional cell in 2015. “With each new split, the position of the party members in the political field of St. Petersburg weakened more and more,” he says. According to Bystrov, the SR in St. Petersburg “has always been a party of the liberal intelligentsia,” which was also led by former Yabloko members (Oksana Dmitrieva): “Such deputies, due to their political views and views, do not welcome the transition to ultrapatriotic positions and rapprochement with [основателем ЧВК «Вагнер»] Evgeny Prigogine. Since Shishkina was a very bright representative of this wing, her departure from the party is quite natural.

On January 20, Sergei Mironov published a photo with a sledgehammer, which Prigozhin sent him as a gift. The leader of the Right-wing Russians told reporters that the resignation of the vice-speaker of the chamber “looks noble.” “But it would be more correct and noble for them to lay down their deputy mandates. Because they got them thanks to the party,” he stressed. Mironov recalled that earlier, Right-wing Russians had repeatedly come up with the initiative to deprive deputies who were elected from the party and then ceased cooperation with it.

According to Bystrov, the city branch of A Just Russia is waiting for further weakening, since “among the local leaders there is not a single more or less serious political figure left.” “Spravorossy have lost the status of the main opponent of United Russia [в Петербурге], which they were in 2011–2016. In the next elections, they may well not get into the legislature, ”concluded the political strategist.